The Washington Department of Labor & Industries (L&I) announced that they are partnering with Harborview Medical Center to create a Center of Excellence that will provide care for burn patients. Workers injured by burns on the job will be treated by specialists and experts to ensure they get the best possible treatment and improve recovery.

“The new Center of Excellence for Burns will help us streamline multi-disciplinary care to Washington’s workers who sustain devastating burns,” said Dr. Nicole Gibran, director of the Regional Burn Center at Harborview Medical Center, part of University of Washington (UW) Medicine. “By coordinating care with providers who understand burn injuries, we facilitate physical and psychological recovery.”

Nationally, burn patients may find it difficult to return to work. Almost half do not return to work within two years after their injury and 28 percent do not return to work at all. A study in the Journal of Burn Care & Research reported that 93 percent of workers who were treated at the UW Medicine Regional Burn Center, on average, returned to work 24 days after their injury. That may be due to the comprehensive and experienced care that the patients at Harborview receive as well as the support from the staff and the employers whose workers are treated at Harborview.  Workers who are insured by L&I will have their claims managed by agency staff who are trained in catastrophic claims, and who will work with the staff at UW Medicine as well as the staff at follow-up facilities to make sure the patient is taken care of.

L&I also opened a Center of Excellence for amputations last year. Both facilities are part of the initiative to improve care for workers who suffer catastrophic injuries on the job.

Read the press release from L&I here.